Welcome to the website of Regional Studies--East Asia at Harvard University.  RSEA is a master's program in East Asian Studies.  In 1946, renowned China scholar John King Fairbank initiated a full-time seminar leading to an M.A. known as Regional Studies China; it was later expanded to include Japan, Korea and Vietnam, and inaugurated the A.M. program known as Regional Studies East Asia.  Today, RSEA is a vibrant interdisciplinary area studies program designed to accommodate a wide range of interests and needs for graduate training in the languages, societies and cultures of East Asia.

For more than half a century, RSEA has had a transformative effect on the field of East Asian Studies and produced over a thousand alumni in all walks of life.  Many of RSEA's alumni have achieved distinction both in the academic world and in the world of public service.  The program affords students interested in a professional career with an opportunity to pursue a flexible and varied courses of instruction related to their career interests; it also serves the needs of students who wish to enter a Ph.D. program but have limited background in the field of East Asian studies.  The world of public service, here broadly defined to include politics, diplomacy, finance, military service and journalism, and the world of academia in both humanities and social sciences are the two spheres that have traditionally defined RSEA's identity and continue to be RSEA's missions today.